


Go To Hell, For Heaven's Sake

by literally_no_idea



Series: Decking Howard [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abusive Parents, Canonical Child Abuse, Child Abuse, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 21:50:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17927000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literally_no_idea/pseuds/literally_no_idea
Summary: Even friendly neighborhood spider-people make mistakes. That’s what Peter tells himself when he stands up, groaning, after slamming into some dude in Central Park. He was just swinging along, minding his own business, when he’d hit the guy, who had seemingly popped out of nowhere. Peter turns to face the guy, already spewing apologies.--title from the Bring Me The Horizon song of the same name.





	Go To Hell, For Heaven's Sake

Even friendly neighborhood spider-people make mistakes. That’s what Peter tells himself when he stands up, groaning, after slamming into some dude in Central Park. He was just swinging along, minding his own business, when he’d hit the guy, who had seemingly popped out of nowhere. Peter turns to face the guy, already spewing apologies.

 

“Hey, I’m really sorry about that, dude, that was definitely not on purpose, totally didn’t see you there, sorry about that,” he says as the guy also stands, brushing off his pants with his back still to Peter.

 

The guy sighs as he turns. “I’m quickly getting used to being run into by people in this century,” he says, and Peter frowns. This century? What the fuck does that mean? This guy doesn’t seem much older than about 30. When he sees the guy’s face, he’s confused, because he can swear he looks familiar.

 

“Uh-huh, yeah, well, the world’s always on hyper speed, right? Anyway, sorry, I’m Spider-man, who are you?”

 

The man frowns. “I had hoped my legacy would at least make me recognizable, though maybe it’s the time jump. I’m Howard Stark, owner of Stark Industries,” he says, and now Peter does recognize him, from all of the articles about Mr. Stark and Stark Industries.

 

The articles always paint Howard as a great businessman, a ladies’ man, an entrepreneur, America’s greatest weapons producer, but they never show the relationship between Howard and Tony, and Peter’s willing to bet it’s because no one even knows what Howard did to Tony to begin with.

 

It’s not super obvious; Peter’s seen how good Mr. Stark is at throwing up a fake smile, even when he’s absolutely miserable or in so much pain that Peter’s not sure how he’s still walking, so it’s probably just Peter, who gets to see Mr. Stark when he’s more anxious, more vulnerable, that knows that Tony is terrified of turning into his dad, terrified of being the man who should have been the most important, most supportive to him.

 

Peter still remembers when he’d argued with Mr. Stark, assuming that he was just talking to an empty suit, and Mr. Stark had stepped out of the suit to talk to him face to face, had looked so pained, so bitter when he’d laughed at himself, saying “God, I sound like my dad.”

 

So Peter doesn’t say anything, just takes a step forward, and throws one punch, then another, then kicks him in the chest, sending Howard flying a good three feet, landing on his back. Peter marches up to him again, picking him up by his stupid tie and lifting him until Howard’s balancing on his toes just to breathe.

 

“Everything that scares Mr. Stark, everything that haunts him, is because of you. Everything good, everything kind, is because of others or himself. Everything Mr. Stark taught me, every selfless, loving decision he’s made, every time he’s helped or saved me, the Avengers, the city, the world, he did it all because he’s a good man.”

 

Peter lets go of Howard’s tie, and Howard’s feet have barely touched the ground again before Peter shoves him backwards, straight into a tree. “And he sure as hell never learned any of that from  _ you _ . He had to learn all of that himself, because all you ever did was hurt him. You’ll never be even half the man your son is. He’s a hero, because of who he is and despite what you did to him.”

 

Peter swings away without another word, and Howard is left leaning against the tree, breathing shakily and barely even registering his lip bleeding or the bruises covering his face.

 

From a distance, a crowd has formed, phones recording the whole interaction, and as Peter leaves, everyone puts their phones down, walking away. “Bruh,” one teenager whispers to another as they watch Howard stagger away, “last time Spidey was this quiet, that rapist ended up in critical condition for five days straight. I don’t know who that dude is, but he must be a whole new level of scum, Spider-man didn’t even do a flip before he left.” The other teen shakes his head.

 

“I don’t know dude, but I would hate to be that guy right now. Pissing off that bad Spidey is like, damn near impossible, he’s gonna be feeling those punches for a while.”

  
  


Peter spends as much time with Tony the week after confronting Howard as he possibly can. He doesn’t explain why, and Tony definitely seems a bit confused, but like most things in Tony’s life, the man just accepts it, spending the week showing Peter how he programmed the suit, some of the improvements he was hoping to make, and even asking Peter to teach him how he made his web fluid formula.

 

It’s so nice that Peter starts asking Tony if he can come over to the tower more and more often, always trying to learn or practice something new, whether he’s cooking in the Avengers’ communal floor (Clint in particular is a fan of Peter’s banana bread), sparring with the team (he finds that Steve actually likes sparring with him a lot), helping Tony in the workshop (engineering isn’t Peter’s strongest suit, but he’s a quick learner), or working with Bruce in the lab (which is actually becoming his new favorite activity, not that he’d ever tell Tony that. but Bruce is super smart too, and Peter really does love science), Peter finds himself interacting more and more with Tony and the rest of the team.

 

It’s as if they’ve already adopted him both into the team and into the family, and Peter loves it. He brings Aunt May over on more than one occasion, and Natasha really loves spending time with her, so he tends to leave Aunt May and Natasha to talk while he watches Tony work. It's fun, and it’s a comfortable new normal for Peter, and even Tony seems to be settling into the idea of having Peter around, becoming more and more like a father figure to him.

 

Months later, when Tony finally asks how he got lucky enough to add two more awesome people to his little family, Peter just tells him that it was fate, deciding that Tony never needs to know how this all came to be. Tony is finally starting to see that he’s better than Howard ever could have been, and Peter intends to keep it that way.


End file.
